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Jack Ryder
|history= Jack Ryder doesn't boo-hoo about his childhood, but it expains a lot. It made him hate bullies, for one. His father got bullied at work and came home to bully his wife and kids to feel better. The kids at school picked on him for being skinny and poor and shy, so they kicked him around and called him names. His penchant for staring and awkward behavior got him a nickname: Creeper. Jack hid himself in movies and television, radio and magazines, devouring everything he could get his hands on, from the Marx Brothers to his mother's Cosmos to his Dad's smut (he even read the articles). He also learned how to get back at them. By high school, Jack had found his voice: quick witted and sarcastic, he humiliated his former tormentors, even cococting pranks and schemes to push his revenge beyond mere words. He didn't get much more popular, but it made him feel better. He worked his way through college, getting a journalism degree and trying his hand at everything from stand up comedy to running a camera to DJing at a radio station. The last proved to be his break, getting attention for going off script and just ranting about whatever was on his mind, and mocking the people who called into complain. He clashed with bosses ovre censorship, pointing to his ratings, and eventually left radio for TV. He got his own talk show, "The Last Ride", a late night mixture of Jerry Springer sleaze, hardcore politics and sensationalist crime. He started actually chasing stories, poking at the seedy underbelly of Gotham, even mocking the Batman. He got a syndicated column ("You're Wrong!") and popped up on political and talk shows all over cable as a talking head. When he got a lead on a new cosmetic surgery clinic that had disfigured patients with experimental procedures, he wasn't above breaking in to investigate. Unfortunately, gangsters work at night and he got caught. Recognizing that Ryder was too famous to let go, the mobster, amused, injected Ryder with a massive overdose of the latest formula, a regenerative skin treatment that hyperhealed cells...but turned the skin yellow, flaky and raw in the process. After standing over Ryder and watching him scream and writhe for an hour, his mouthy defiance turned to incohrent begging, they had mercy and shot him in the head. Only he didn't stay dead. He rose, changed, monstrous...and someone else. Brain damage, chemicals, genetics, his traumas all added together to shatter Jack Ryder into two men...or, rathr, a man and a monster. The Creeper gained monstrous powers to go with his madness and hunted down those who'd wronged him, toying with them. The gangster himself ended up in Arkham, catatonic and only whispering Creeper's name over and over and over again. Jack and Creeper, afterwards, reached a truce: Creeper would only inflict his violence and cruelty on bad guys...and Ryder wouldn't seek out a cure. Gotham's streets may never be the same. }} Category:Character